LOCATION: all round the docks

STORY: The unexpected guest.

It was during a one day ''happening' at Station on the docks beside Redcliffe Caves. It seemed like the first day of Winter last year. Sunday 13th October, after glorious weather the heavens opened that morning and it rained continuously all day. The event was connected to the harvest festival of Succot which is a time in Israel when ''Succahs' temporary dwelling places are built and people eat and sleep in them under the stars to remember the impermanence and temporariness of life. It is also a time to welcome in the stranger to your heart and your Succah and offer hospitality. During these difficult times in the Middle east the idea of hospitality to the stranger, the unknown person, the absolute surprise would be an interesting challenge. Because of the rain we were all huddled inside Station (our Succah for the day) infront of a woodburning stove eating hot stew and drinking wine. We were mainly artists and friends. But we did have a few unknowns visitors. One man looked disheveled, and we were not sure about him. He had a drink and was disorientated and eventually revealed that he had left his wife and was sleeping in a friend's car. It was a bit awkward having him with us but what is hospitality about if we can't accept the unexpected guest! He finally left and the dancing started into the evening.

Much later our friend returned with a car laden with flowers. He handed the women at Station huge bunches of roses, carnations lilies and wondrous exotic pot plants. We were overwhelmed by his generosity and he seemed so delighted to be giving presents.

Talking recently to an artist friend Adele, who was there on the day, she said her pink orchid had flowered for the third time, almost a year after receiving it. The gift of living flowers still lives on unlike the food and the wine. An unexpected pleasure.

LOCATION: Station

STORY: I was rowing just under Redcliffe Bridge and I shouted up to my mate ALex who lived in one of the flats above. Sometimes he did not hear me but this time he came to the window and looked out. He told me that his partner had just had a baby, Pearl. That was wonderful, finding a pearl in the docks. She is two now and the sweetest little thing.

LOCATION: Redcliffe flats, just near the bridge

STORY: Petrol Coloured Memories.
Most of us have heard the song sitting on the dock of the bay. Well I have anyway sung by both Otis Redding and Percy sledge; whistled in the bath badly by me. What is it about Bristol docks that I’m trying to remember? You know these days I walk in and around the area and I quite like being close to water without having to be in it. That’s what I remember the “Grandprix Powerboat Racing” that happened for a couple of years in the late 70’s or was it the early 80’s. They must have had some fun. Close to the water without having to be in it and the added whiff of high-octane fuel even I could smell as a spectator. The weekend Bristol turned into Monte Carlo or bust and that was before they built “The Point.” But, as I lead down on the therapist’s couch she asked me excitedly, ‘How did it make you feel the first fatal crash?’ My reply might sound selfish but I was told to say the first thing that came into my head, ‘Lucky.’ I stopped going to the therapist after that particular session. Prior to the therapy I’d always had good memories of songs about water and boats and high powered racing machines. Now whenever I go near the docks I start crying for a little while. Mind you I still like to wander aimlessly around on Sunday afternoons for a few hours. Why the therapist got to talking about fatal powerboat accidents I’ll never know. The main reason the therapy ended was that she was killed in a plane crash. How did it make me feel? Cheated. Still I had sunny afternoons and ice cream in mind when I got the news. It did occur to me that ice cream was a lot more enjoyable without the noise of powerboats and memories of fatal accidents. Perhaps the therapy had worked after all or maybe like the dock landscape I have changed.

LOCATION: City docks

STORY:Wherever you looked, it was burning, everything. We had left my mother and a brother at the Nova Scotia. I think the all clear went around half past twelve that night. As we came down Cumberland Road, all the timber yards were ablaze, and we were quite convinced that the Nova Scotia was no longer there. We thought mum was gone and everyhting, There was terrific heat. Anyway, as we came round what was then Browns cafe - now its Howards restaurant - there was my mother, she'd been waiting in the smoke room, and she came out and she said 'where the bloody hell have you been?'

LOCATION: Cumberland Road

THE STORIES BELOW ARE INCLUDED ON THE BOARD ON REDCLIFFE WHARF:

STORY: I was cycling home from the Cottage one evening last summer. I took special care not to run my bike wheel into the train tracks. By the Brunell Buttery there is a set of points. Easy to navigate those I thought. I thought wrong. My head hit the side of the buttery, the rest of me hit the floor. I realised how much it hurts to fall off sober.

LOCATION: Brunell Buttery

STORY: When Gordon took over as landlord of what is now the Bag O Nails at the bottom of Jacobs Wells Road it was called The American Eagle and decorated in a shabby 1970's US style. He stripped out the interior and changed the name, but regretted it when he subsequently found out that it had been called The American Eagle since the middle of the 1800s. At one time there had been something like 180 of these one room bars between the end of Hotwell Road and the City Centre competing for the custom of the sailors and so this one had been presumably named to attract those who had travelled from the other side of the Atlantic.

LOCATION: Hotwells

LOCATION: The Thekla

STORY: My daughter and I were having lunch downstairs in the Riverstation restaurant. She was going abroad soon, and I knew I was going to miss her. Neither of us could think of much to say. It was a hot day, and the door onto the dockside was propped open. Suddenly, three ducks waddled through the open door into the restaurant. The customers who noticed just stared with open mouths, wondering what to do. Then a waitress walked up, and the ducks were startled. In a panic, they took off, flew towards the sky, and rebounded off the windows. Several people tried to pick the ducks up, and eventually they were herded out of the door. Peace was restored. The restaurant was left with lots of small feathers, drifting around the corners of the room. We hadn't moved at all. I still felt sad that my daughter was leaving.

LOCATION: Riverstation restaurant

STORY: We met through a mutual friend, I was so attracted to him straight away. We arranged to meet by the Arnolfini waterside for a drink. He made my insides flip around and all I could handle right then was to look at his hands. That was thursday. On Sunday we met again, and walked around the docks, which brought back memories of my time in Bristol four years ago. I love the docks, there is such an atmosphere there. And now.... we are together, still having fun down at the docks, and I've never felt this way before. So I'm back in Bristol, happy as a yacht in the harbour on a sunny day!

LOCATION: By the Arnolfini

STORY: A while ago I lived on a boat. Things were different then. A man used to live in an old railway hut nearby. He lived there for years. He shouted sometimes. The buttery used to leave food out for him. There were foxes round there too. But then the council knocked his hut down, I suppose because they thought it wouldn't fit in because they were building the new flats and thought it might make a dent in their prices. I regret the way the docks is being increasingly controlled for us. Railings being put alongside the dock to make sure we don't fall in. Old buildings being knocked down because they look 'untidy' instead of finding people who would use them. Calling it 'landscaping'. You can landscape the life out of a place if you're not careful.

LOCATION: Brunels Buttery

STORY: I was 'seeing' a bloke who was the manager of a bar in Bristol city centre, and we would often have lock-ins with a bunch of his friends, ending up with all of us drinking until about 5 or 6 in the morning. After one such session, his friend Jamie, a coke-addict, and pissed like the rest of us, and I decided to go for a walk, and wandered down to the docks. There were loads of highly expensive yaughts moored by the Lloyds TSB building, and Jamie decided to suggest leaping about on them. Due to the alcohol, I thought that this would be a laugh, so joined him. I was a little worried we'd get arrested for trespassing or something, and also that we might slip off in our drunken state, and end up drowning in the murky water. We were fine though, and I ended walking home in the early morning sunshine.

LOCATION: Near Lloyds Building

STORY: I was sailing along and then the wind caught me, and I went arse over tit into the water. I got out by climbing onto the boat, I bumped my head on the little boom

LOCATION: Baltic Wharfe

STORY: I used to live on a boat, and moored on the opposite quay to me was a boat someone else lived in. I got used to it being part of my view across the water. One day I woke up and it wasn't there, but its mooring rope was still there, going down into the water. Later I found out that it had sunk though thankfully he hadn't been on it at the time. What had happened was that it had been a dry few weeks, no rain, and the boards of the boat above waterlevel had shrunk as they dried out in the heat, causing gaps to open up between the boards. Then someone decided to store some wood on top of the boat. This pushed the boat lower in the water, the gaps between the hull planks let the water in, the boat sank and the wood floated off towards the Arnolifini.

LOCATION: Near Lloyds

STORY: One day I was having a drink by the side of the Arnolfini with his very old freind of mine and we saw this little boat coming along with a iltte outboard, and it was a man with his two sons. Everybody was sitting outisde the Arnolfini, it was a beautiful summer evening, and this man came along and started doing cicrles in front of use, and it was almost like he was showing off, 'look I'm having a lovely time, in my boat with my sons and you are just sitting on the wall'. Suddenly the outboard dropped off the back of the boat and vanished. And this guy just couldn't believe it, he kept peering over into the water, and everybody on the dockside had been watching the boat because he had been showing off, and there must have been about 60 people on the quayside rolling around with laughter. He had to get his oars out and row away.

LOCATION: Outside Arnolfini

STORY: When I first moved to Bristol to start university, my parents came up for a weekend to visit me in my new home and city for the next three years. They had already been to Bristol on several occasions before as my sister was also a student at UWE a few years ago so they were familiar with the area. I was living south of the river at the time and so we took a pleasant stroll along the river and past the S.S. Great Britain where we came across a group of drug addicts who were jacking up heroin in broad daylight. I remember feeling at the time slightly scared and have, ever since, been wary of that particular place along the docks. Being from a relatively small town, this was not a common sight for me - of course we see the drunken tramps hanging about on Weymouth promenade, but never an addict in action.

LOCATION:near SS Great Britain

STORY 50: I saved someone's life in the dock. It was an ex-husband of a friend of mine and he was very very keen on drugs. He was out with this friend of mine and their son, and he had prepared himself be getting very doped up and got over-excited and jumped in - it was a warm summers days, and then he realised he didn't have a way of getting out again. Or am I getting that wrong? Maybe his son chucked something in and so he tried to lean over to pick it out of the water, and then he realised it would be better if he held my hand, then scrabbled down the side of the docks and then realised that as he was doing that it wasn't possible for him to get up again so one had to pull him up. He went in the water but because the side was all slimy he couldn't get a grip. Ifs that the right thing that happened? I don't know. There is another possibility, that he didn't go in the water at all, but kept saying 'you saved my life at the docks' and thats what I vaguely remember.

LOCATION: Floating Harbour

STORY:You used to be able to see Ashton Court as you walked down the docks, now the Points in the way.

LOCATION:

STORY: I walk past every day, I see the swans sleeping. I look out for the hidden tower on Redcliffe Church which hides a telephone mast. I don't know where the hidden tower is, because its hidden, but I look for it.

LOCATION:St Mary Redcliffe

STORY :I fell in the docks once. Well, actually, I just got my foot wet.

LOCATION: Off pontoon near Thekla

STORY: Its funny what people can do in the space of two seconds down by the docks, when its not a place that people wander past necessarily, but it happened one day that somebody just saw my bike just attached to itsel,f not attached to anything......and picked it up and ran away with it. I do think they were a bit of a chancer. I was shocked. I half thought about asking the people across the river in the Severn Shed and whatever the other place is, the Riverstation whether they had seen anyone picking up a bike and running with, then I thought they would turn round and say yeah and there'd be nothing I could do about it. I was inside Station reading the sunday papers.

LOCATION: Outside Station

STORY:We watched the launching of the Matthew. We followed it all the way through a quarter of a million people at the Festival of the Sea, it was marvellous, everything came together.

LOCATION:Redcliffe Wharfe

STORY: Don't know what they are going to do with the old gas station - the top soil is contaminated, I think they've got to dig it out to a depth of 6 metres.

LOCATION:Old gas station

STORY: I've seen eels come up to eat the bread near the Industrial Museum.

LOCATION: Industrial Museum

STORY: I went in the flats - it was out of this world, we wnet on the balcony and then we went in another one and it was absolutely brilliant. Its different to a council flat.

LOCATION: The Point

STORY 40: The little bus that goes round is Bugler bus. it stops at the SS great Britain, but a lot of peopl don't use it as much as they should. The bus does a loop - it starts at Baltic Wharf, then goes past the General Hospital then into Broadmead then the Centre then Park Street Hotwells and back to Baltic Wharf. Its a lovely trip.

LOCATION: Baltic Wharf

STORY: In the summer you have got the ferry that runs up and down, and we sit on the seats near the SS Great britain and watch the world go by. Its changed for the better and theres more activity now. Some of the new development is a bit stark. Theres a lot going on, one way and another. It could be done up a bit more for people to walk, some more seats.

LOCATION: SS Great Britain / The Point.

STORY: Last year sometime there was a nutter who took to shooting rockets at the church whenever the bellringers were on, he woudl appear near byzantium and fire rockets at the church and they woudl go off with great bangs. One of the rockets went over the top of church and made a great banging noise outside the Ship Inn. The Shipp Inn children had a chicken called Morris, and the noise so frightened Morris that he laid and egg. Thats how they foudn out Morris was a she.

LOCATION: St Mary Redlciffe / Ship Inn.

STORY: The warehouse next to what is now McArthurs, a grey stone warehouse, was still standing, but all the woodyward was afire. The flames were licking round this warehouse, and it was full of sugar. Eventually it caught fire. The sugar was liquid, and it was running out of the door and down the road and into the river.

LOCATION: McArthurs warehouse

STORY: We have lived on this boat for 5 years now. I like the atmosphere, we spent more time on the boat than we did in the house so we sold the house. I like the wildlife, I like the community.

LOCATION: Floating Harbour between locations 10 and 11

STORY: I love boats. You have to have a feeling for the boat, you become part of a boat, you find yourself very much at ease on a boat, its a natural feeling.

LOCATION: Floating Harbour between locations 10 and 11

STORY: Sitting, eating, looking out over the docks a light appeared. At first a small flame but quickly taking hold until the old warehouse was ablaze. The fire raged. I opened the window and felt the heat on my face. Mesmerised, people gathered on the dockside to watch the pyrotechnics which were to alter the landscape.

LOCATION: Canons Marsh viewed from Cumberland Road

STORY: In 1989, cycling along the quayside, I arrived at the railway points outside the Industrial Museum too rapidly. Time slowed as I remembered as a child seeing how the points on my train set magically guided an engine's wheels safely across from one track to another. Unfortunately the system doesn't work so well for bicycles. There was no where to go. The next moment I was sitting on the quayside with gravel embedded in my hand. I picked out the offending stones and continued shakily on to the Watershed. Blood dripping from my fingertips left a trail of spots all the way from Princes Wharf past the Arnolfini and on down Narrow Quay. I still have the scars today. In 2003, cycling along the quayside, I arrived at a set of railway points near The Buttery too rapidly. There was no where to go. I hit a wall and skidded along the ground shattering my upper arm in several places. What did I learn from the experience? Intravenous morphine beats four pints of Fiddler's Tipple any night of the week.

LOCATION: Prince's Wharf and Whapping Wharf

STORY My least favourite story is when I was punched in the stomach by a complete stranger while walking outside the watershed. He just wanted to fight me, and it was everything I could do to stop myself from reacting. I have never been back, and I recommend other people either not to go there or to be very careful. The docks attract all kinds of vermin.

LOCATION: Watershed

STORY 30: Not long ago I bought a boat. Not a very big boat. Not a shiny new boat. She was dirty, damp, tired and infested with spiders. But with a little care and attention she came back to life. Now you'll see us in the harbour, pottering up and down on a sunny afternoon. Going there. And back. And there again. If you see us passing by, don't be shy, wave hello. We always wave back. It's a friendly place, the Floating Harbour, but nicer gliding on the water than strolling on the land.

LOCATION: Floating Harbour

STORY: In about 1983 I was very taken with the idea of walking around in a large overcoat and a fine Black trilby. One wet and windy evening I was making my way across the centre, to see The Stranglers at the Colston Hall, when a sudden gust of wind, took my beloved hat and deposited into the docks, just in front of The Watershed. That marked the end of my regular hat wearing days. To tub salt in my wounds, The Stranglers weren't any good either. Waste of a good hat.

LOCATION: Outside The Watershed

STORY: On tuesday night me and my friend both had our bags stolen from a bar on the waterfront with everything important to my life in it (well almost) my phone, purse, car keys and house keys not to mention drivers licences with full addresses on it! The locks are being changed as I speak!

LOCATION: Waterfront bar

STORY: One day at the office I happened to mention an interest in sailing. My colleague at the next desk looked across at me and said he had a boat for sale. The very same evening he arrived at my house in a battered old VW camper bus towing a very pretty little "Merron" sailing dinghy and we took it down to the water and launched it for a quick row and sail round.

Although my colleague had brought the Merron up from Somerset he had no intention of taking it back again. Money changed hands, not much for the dinghy but rather a lot added for the trailer, which of course was ever so slightly essential, and I became the proud owner of a boat. I had to get a dinghy park space at Baltic Wharf, pay for storage, navigation and insurance, and then I was free to row or sail as the fancy took me.

The Merron is a delightful little boat, built in 1947 and one of the first moulded ply designs, predating the pretty Fairey Duckling by several years. The hull was utilitarian with rounded bottom and blunt nose, intended more as a tender than for serious sailing. The mast was a single pole near the bow, on which a gunter extension and heavy boom carried a bright yellow sail. I never did get that sail quite right, there was always a diagonal crease, but she sailed happily enough despite the vagaries of ever-changing and "lumpy" wind on the various reaches of water.

My best recollections are of thrashing to and fro on white water in a howling winter gale just off the SS Great Britain, and of sailing up and down St Augustine's Reach (alas no longer possible) in the strong steady wind blowing from the Tramways Centre toward the Industrial Museum.

Everyone fell in love with "Gallivant" on sight, there is something about a wooden boat of good proportions that we all love. Except one ancient mariner who called it "that thing" and, justifiably, had not a kind word to say about my sailing technique.

One time, near The Cottage, "Gallivant" was boarded by two delightful and buxom lady pirates, and I was marched ashore at (plastic) cutlass point whilst they hoisted the Jolly Roger and took a photo call for the Evening Post.

When age and arthritis made it difficult for me to haul "Gallivant" up the Baltic Wharf slipway, I sold her regretfully and commissioned Dorado Boats to build a lightweight rowing dinghy. This was a short, fat design, white with a token strip of wood around the top, and christened "Bother!" this being the first word spoken by Mole in "Wind in the Willows", who says "Bother spring cleaning!" and goes off to join Rat in his boat on the river.

"Bother!" was a lovely little boat to row and I took her everywhere the navigation licence would permit, round Cumberland Basin, up the Harbour to the Centre, around Bathhurst Basin, even up the Feeder to Netham. She was my daily transport and took me on shopping trips to from Hotwells to Broadmead, mooring at Castle Park and walking over the footbridge into The Galleries.

One time a Febuary gale caught "Bother!" just as I was stepping down into her from the very high Castle Park landing stage. I had been about to land midships ahead of the seat. As "Bother!" moved I saw I was going to land forward of the seat. I was beyond the point of no return and by the time I landed on deck "Bother!" had moved so far that I was standing right on her bow. The bow went under, the stern rose in the air, "Bother!" flipped over and I was left standing on water, but not for long as I subsided gently downward until my buoyancy aid took my weight. No harm done, just a soaking, but after that I always made sure "Bother!" was securely moored before stepping in.

One scorching Easter Tuesday I rowed "Bother!" beyond Netham and all the way to Hanham and back, a total of 14 miles. This can only be done by arrangement with the lock-keeper at Netham at a time when the tide is not going to flood over the weir and there is not too much rainwater coming down from Bath. My navigation licence, at eleven quid for the year, allowed me to row anywhere between Cumberland Basin and Hanham, and I was determined to have every pennyworth of it!

In summer I recall drifting around between The Cottage and Merchants dock having a picnic of strawberries and cream. A bottle of white wine was kept cool by floating it in the water at the end of a short line and kept from sinking by a floatation collar. A pleasant lazy afternoon. . . I have many happy memories of "Gallivant" and "Bother!" One thing is for sure - the time spent messing about in boats is not deducted from ones lifespan!

STORY: I had just begun teaching people to sail at Baltic Wharf Sailing School and had two lady novices in my dinghy. Opposite the SS Great Britain I became over-confident and during a late tack managed to hook the mast of my Wayfarer dinghy on one of Square Sail's tall ships, the "Kaskelot", moored opposite. We sat there for ages until an elderly gentleman out walking his dog jumped on the "Kaskelot" and pushed us clear. To my surprise the two ladies signed up for a full sailing course having found the whole experience hilarious. I have yet to live it down among my sailing friends!

LOCATION: Opposite what is now the Maritime Museum (location 3)

STORY: Favourite place on the docks? Its hard to say, the council have done a good job all round.

LOCATION: All round the docks

STORY: late one night, wearing a hand made dress in the style of coco chanel, i posed for photographs on an anonymous white MG parked outside the Arnolfini under the light of a solitary street lamp. we initially were aiming to sneak me onto a yaught or boat of some shape or form, but unfortunately it was a busy night and randomly we stumbled across the aforesaid car. it was much fun and three of us stumbled around in kitten heels; coca, marilyn M and a student photographer.

LOCATION: outside the arnolfini

STORY: I run round the docks. I belong to the sports club at Newfoundland Road. I've run 31 marathons. I run 10 to 12 miles a day. I run round the docks, by the bonded warehouses up near Cumberland Basin, sometimes over the footbridge and then up Rownham hill, sometimes over the suspension bridge or over to Abbots Leigh or to Avonmouth.

LOCATION: All round the docks.

STORY: Have you seen the eels feeding in the bilge from the resaurant boat? They are huge and like a writhing sliver rope.

LOCATION: Glass Boat.

STORY: I saw a dolphin in 1982 by the Floating Harbour Creed Wall.

LOCATION: Floating Harbour Creed Wall

STORY 20: When I was little I lived on Coronation Road. I remember looking at the old bonded warehouses on Cannon's Marsh. They were tall and white and had small dark windows. One dayI saw a programme on TV about holidays in Europe. All the buidlings in the programme were tall and white with small windows, so I used to think that Cannon's Marsh was Europe.

LOCATION: Cannon's Marsh

STORY: i was born at the bottom of the docks. my mother was a newt, and my father was a roving seaman. they had a squalid night of passion, and i was the end result. i lived the early part of my life thru trickery, stealing what i could from unwary passersby. gradually my gills began to fade, and i was forced to spend more and more of my time out of the water. eventually, i left the docks and started a new life as an assurance clerk. there are days i'd give it all away, just for a taste of slimy bristol seaweed...

LOCATION: the bottom

STORY: We had a dream. a wonderful 'exploding greenhouse' if you will. a place that would bring music and dance and all sorts of performance to the Harbourside and beyond. a creative centre, a jewel in the crown, a hive of excitement. All I see now is 'luxury' flats, townie clubs and overpriced bars. I weep when I see the empty space next to the Lloyds building. Where ART thou now Harbourside Centre? And why weren't those responsible for its downfall made accountable???

STORY: I've lived on Cumberland Road for ten years. For the first few years we had a lovely view of the docks from our back windows. We looked out over a piece of waste land, which was filled with plants, wildlife, and even the occasional tramp, living in unused railway buildings, or in an abandoned car. One of the tramps was definitely a neighbour. He didn't actually speak to us much, though he talked to himself a lot. He liked sunbathing semi-naked in the shelter of an old fence. Now we look out over the Point, a new development of flats. Some people feel the area has improved. Our new neighbours are a better class of person. I miss the view of the docks, though. I even miss the sunbathing tramp. But recently I saw a naked man in one of the new flats, so that cheered me up.

LOCATION: Wapping Wharf

STORY: Me and my mate were drunk and playing in the bubbles at the bottom of the cascade. Someone must have poured in a good bottle of fairy liquid because they had risen in a giant wall of foam which was just too tempting to resist. After we'd finished feasting on chicken burgers and chips she ran over to the water bent down and scooped up massive armfuls of white froth and started chasing me around with it. I ran off up the little ramp to the Falafal stand, where a hapless young man was sitting, minding his own business eating his late night snack. She's a bit mad my mate, and she just threw the bubbles all over this complete stranger. The exchange turned into a bit of a tussle and I just watched speechless. I couldn't believe the cheek of the girl. Eventually I dragged her off him, apologised profusely and we scuttled off towards home. Five minutes later the guy, still a bit soggy from the bubble attack, jumped out from behind a tree and insisted on introducing himself and walking us home. He'd obviously enjoyed getting a soaking because he started chatting up my mate. We said goodbye outside The Louisiana and never saw him again.

LOCATION: on the harbourside outside watershed, at the bottom of the cascade

STORY: It was one of those Summer evenings when people could sit outside in T-shirts until it got dark and have a drink. It must have been 1983 or 1984 and I think the Boat Show or something was on. I was with a couple of other girls having a drink outside the Waterfront Bar (when it was new!).

It was still early evening and a man came up to us and asked if we would look after his watch. It seemed like a strange chat-up line but we couldn't think how it could hurt so we agreed and took the watch. We weren't far from the water and watched as he calmly walked to the edge, took off his clothes and dived in. We were amazed and continued watching as he swam to the Watershed side of the water and got picked up by a River Police boat.

Obviously, it caused some excitement and left us with the dilemma of what to do with the watch. Eventually, we decided to give it to a policeman who seemed confused but took it anyway.

LOCATION: Outside the Waterfront Bar opposite the Watershed

STORY: When I heard the news
I was in the city centre
a cellophaned January day.
Crinkled light
deflected from Pero's Millennium bridge,
built in memory of Africans
who suffered in the triangle of trade.

I couldn't believe
how it didn't lose
its pride to the information
of Nick's suicide.

Two enormous horns
curved like
courting swans
upon the water.

But it is still
walked over,
a fate captured in its
architecture.

Slaves
like my brother
forced by his parents
to crawl on hands and knees
branded too animal
to stand upright

couldn't shake the labels
dirty, lazy, scum

shifted from field to field
picked
fruit, hops, daffodils
Black beneath his fingernails.

Always scape-goated against
the fence of the civilised.

Home
the shoes on his feet

rather jump ship
than live
with a victim's stench.

Pero's bridge arched defiant
shrink-wrapped
remembrance.

When I heard the news
its horns cried
freedom
freedom

Location: Pero's bridge

STORY:You can look at a building and see bricks, mortar, concrete and glass. But if you have lived in the city for any length of time, you can, if you have some personal history there, look right through a building or some other sort of construction and engage with its secrets - from happiness and exhilaration to violence and death. And so it is with me.

If I can ever bear to look at the Lloyds Bank building, I see only abuse and pain. The Swallow Hotel - I see two men hurtling down a derelict spiralling staircase. But if I pass by the Cumberland Basin in a taxi or a friend's car, I point excitedly at a deep concrete strut supporting the flyover, and cry to the bewildered driver - "That's where our band used to practice - in there." We wrote a song about it - Cumberland Basin Blues

LOCATION: Cumberland Basin

STORY: On September 24th 2002 I was having lunch with my friend at the Olive Shed. I ordered the fish, and as it arrived I felt a wave of nausea wash over me, then disappear. That evening at six o'clock I heard that my father had just died. The next day I discovered I was pregnant.

LOCATION: Olive Shed

STORY: I lived in Redcliffe parade. It was a cold winter and my car wouldn't start. I used to give a fellow student a lift to college, She used to push my Volkswagen Beetle to get it going. She is now my wife.

LOCATION: Redcliffe Parade

STORY 10: I helped pull an old lady out of the water (on the Watershed side) who was floating on her front. She was very heavy to get onto the steps as she had a winter overcoat on. A man had jumped in and swam her to the steps. She was blue with cold but still alive. The ambulance arrived and we left. I was surprised to see lots of people watching as I got up to go. It would have been easier if someone else had helped.

LOCATION: Watershed waterside

STORY: I saw my friend sail into Bristol Docks on the Matthew, surrounded by pirates, dressed as a 7 foot puffin, How did it make me feel? I'll give you one guess!

LOCATION: Cumberland Basin.

STORY: About 5 years ago I was walking back home after staying a little longer at work than usual. I suppose it must have been about 7pm and getting dark. As I was just starting to walk over the Prince Street bridge towards Southville, a guy coming the other way stopped me and asked me if I knew where the Bristol Clipper pub was. "Sure," I replied, turning round and pointing back to it. "Ta'" he said, and we both carried on our separate ways.

I had hardly crossed the bridge when I heard footsteps behind me. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was him again, except this time he grabbed me by my jacket and said something I cannot recollect, but he was obviously after something I had. I noticed his other hand in his pocket and without thinking too much about it I lashed out and brought my knuckles slamming down on his nose. He let go and stepped back allowing me to run. I ran for 15 minutes all the way home. I am not violent and don't think about potential muggings, but I was quite shaken up by it. I don't recollect if anyone else was around or passing by - I didn't stop to find out.

It left me disappointed that having lived in Bristol for 14 years I was treated like that. Angry too that this guy felt he had some right to try it on with strangers. It actually resurrects that anger even writing about it now.

LOCATION: Prince Street bridge, walking towards Southville/Bedminster.

STORY: I took my son, aged 8 at the time, to see the fireworks on Millenium night. We walked to the Arnolfini Bridge to watch them go off. We could see over to the fun-fair on the other side of the docks and my son was open mouthed at the sight of the fireworks and the lights of the big wheel spinning all at the same time. There were hundreds of people there and cars unbelievably trying to cross the packed bridge while we stood, several deep, on the pavement.

My son stood riveted to the spot, overawed by all the people, the noise, the lights and the fact that was 'in town' at night time! At the time he was hardly able to see over the sides of the bridge even by pulling himself up on to his toes - he was too scared to sit on top - now he is tall enough to lean over and would probably run across the top now for a dare.

In our dining room there is still a faded picture he drew of the occaision - in it everyone is saying Ooooooohhhh!

LOCATION: Arnolfini Bridge

STORY: I remember being told a story by my father (who dies last year aged 85) that during the war he worked in the dock area as a carpenter. Apparently each night the people leaving the site were inspected by dock police to check for smuggled goods. A man would reglarly go through pushing a wheelbarrow containing an old sack - he was always stopped and the sack was searched. Invariably they found nothing of interest and he was allowed to pass.

Several years later my father met this man in a pub by chance and they spoke about the days when they worked at the docks. Dad mentioned the searching of the wheelbarrow and the man laughed and told him that he did not use is for smuggling stolen goods - it was the wheelbarrows that were stolen!

LOCATION: Bristol City Docks

STORY: I was arranged to meet some friends after work for a few pints at the arnolfini. I was early, actually one half hours early in fact due to a problem at work. So i just decided to sit by the river outside and wait. The hour and a half sitting on the edge staring at the water felt like a day, the sun was setting and refelecting into the water, It was just me my walkman, my tunes, my thoughts!

LOCATION: Outside the Arnolfini

STORY: One Arnolfini afternoon last summer the police came and hiked out of the water a dead body (ick!) - I didn't have a look myself but my friend did. It was in the bit of water by where The Matthew comes in.

LOCATION: Arnolfini beachside

STORY: At the old Ashton Avenue bridge there is a water pumping station. It has a slight air of decay about it, and for a building of 1960s vintage, it could be a set for a Doctor Who episode - deserted and cold. It's where we saw our first kestrel close up and personal. For several days we would return to the spot and see 'Kes'. He flitted about from one corner of the roof of the pump house to another, eyeing his prey in the still-uncut grass of that April 1st day.

It was fascinating to watch Kes swoop around the building and then return to a perch he found. That we were able to be quite close to him was unusual, and it demonstrated how humans and wildlife live in close proximity in this city. His dark eyes were on us too.

On the fourth day, Kes had gone. He was just another element of wildlife that is found around the docks, and particularly in this end of the docks. We didn't stop looking for him, and this lasted for a couple of weeks. We missed him in a child-like kind of way.

LOCATION: 12 - Ashton Avenue Bridge.

STORY: One day I saw a man fall off my bike in the tramlines near the Industrial Museum. He fell off in such a way that to stop himself hitting the ground he had to keep running, so I saw him as he sped past two old ladies, searing and cursing at the top of his voice. His bike had fallen over behind him, and I don't think the old ladies had any idea why he was running so fast or swearing so loud. I laughed a lot.

LOCATION: outside the Industrial Museum

STORY: We had come back in the catamaran from a few days sailing. It was summer, and we had to moor in Cumberland Basin because the Hotwells Swing Bridge was stuck because it had expanded in the heat. The firemen were hosing the bridge down to try to cool it. As we didn't know how long it would take, we decided to have a drink at the Pump House, leaving the captain's 12 year old boy on board to look after the boat.

We were happily sitting outside the Pump House, when we saw the bridge had finally been opened. All the boats waiting were rushing through, and the harbour master had said to the lad that he either had to go then or wait again till they had let some more cars go over the bridge and see if they could open it again after that. So he decided to steer it through. It being a catamaran, it was very wide and might only just scrape through. The captain stood on the side, with his heart in his mouth, seeing his son steer his boat (whcih was also his home) through. He suceeded without even a little scrape! We all cheered, and then finished our pints.

LOCATION: Cumberland Basin Bridge

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